THE LOST DAHLIA. 

By Mary Russell Mitford

If to have "had losses" be, as affirmed by Dogberry in one ofShakspeare's most charming plays, and corroborated by Sir Walter Scottin one of his most charming romances--(those two names do well injuxtaposition, the great Englishman! the great Scotsman!)--If to have"had losses" be a main proof of credit and respectability, then am Ione of the most responsible persons in the whole county of Berks. To saynothing of the graver matters which figure in a banker's book, and make, in these days of pounds, shillings, and pence, so large a part ofthe domestic tragedy of life--putting wholly aside all the grandertransitions of property in house and land, of money on mortgage, andmoney in the funds--(and yet I might put in my claim to no triflingamount of ill luck in that way also, if I had a mind to try my hand ata dismal story)--counting for nought all weightier grievances, there isnot a lady within twenty miles who can produce so large a list of smalllosses as my unfortunate self. 

From the day when, a tiny damsel of some four years old, I first had apocket-handkerchief to lose, down to this very night--I will not say howmany years after--when, as I have just discovered, I have most certainlylost from my pocket the new cambric kerchief which I deposited therein alittle before dinner, scarcely a week has passed without some part ofmy goods and chattels being returned missing. Gloves, muffs, parasols, reticules, have each of them a provoking knack of falling from myhands; boas glide from my neck, rings slip from my fingers, the bow hasvanished from my cap, the veil from my bonnet, the sandal from my foot, the brooch from my collar, and the collar from my brooch. The trinketwhich I liked best, a jewelled pin, the first gift of a dear friend, (luckily the friendship is not necessarily appended to the token, )dropped from my shawl in the midst of the high road; and of shawlsthemselves, there is no end to the loss. The two prettiest that everI had in my life, one a splendid specimen of Glasgow manufacture--ascarlet hardly to be distinguished from Cashmere--the other a lighterand cheaper fabric, white in the centre, with a delicate sprig, anda border harmoniously compounded of the deepest blue, the brightestorange, and the richest brown, disappeared in two successive summersand winters, in the very bloom of their novelty, from the folds ofthe phaeton, in which they had been deposited for safety--fairly blownoverboard! If I left things about, they were lost. If I put them away, they were lost. They were lost in the drawers--they were lost out And iffor a miracle I had them safe under lock and key, why, then, I lost mykeys! I was certainly the most unlucky person under the sun. If therewas nothing else to lose, I was fain to lose myself--I mean my way;bewildered in these Aberleigh lanes of ours, or in the woodland recessesof the Penge, as if haunted by that fairy, Robin Good-fellow, who ledHermia and Helena such a dance in the Midsummer Night's Dream. Alas!that there should be no Fairies now-a-days, or rather no truebelievers in Fairies, to help us to bear the burthen of our own mortalcarelessness. 

It was not quite all carelessness, though! Some ill luck did mingle witha great deal of mismanagement, as the "one poor happ'orth of bread"with the huge gallon of sack in the bill of which Poins pickedFalstaff's pocket when he was asleep behind the arras. Things belongingto me, or things that I cared for, did contrive to get lost, without myhaving any hand in the matter. For instance, if out of the variety of"talking birds, " starlings, jackdaws, and magpies, which my fatherdelights to entertain, any one particularly diverting or accomplished, more than usually coaxing and mischievous, happened to attract myattention, and to pay me the compliment of following at my heels, or perching upon my shoulder, the gentleman was sure to hop off. Myfavourite mare, Pearl, the pretty docile creature which draws my littlephaeton, has such a talent for leaping, that she is no sooner turned outin either of our meadows, than she disappears. And Dash himself, paragonof spaniels, pet of pets, beauty of beauties, has only one shade ofimperfection--would be thoroughly faultless, if it were not for a slighttendency to run away. He is regularly lost four or five times everywinter, and has been oftener cried through the streets of Belford, andadvertised in the county newspapers, than comports with a dog of hisdignity. Now, these mischances clearly belong to that class of accidentscommonly called casualties, and are quite unconnected with any infirmityof temperament on my part I cannot help Pearl's proficiency in jumping, nor Dash's propensity to wander through the country; neither had I anyhand in the loss which has given its title to this paper, and which, after so much previous dallying, I am at length about to narrate. 

The autumn before last, that is to say, above a year ago, the boast andglory of my little garden was a dahlia called the Phoebus. How it camethere, nobody very distinctly knew, nor where it came from, nor how wecame by it, nor how it came by its own most appropriate name. Neitherthe lad who tends our flowers, nor my father, the person chieflyconcerned in procuring them, nor I myself, who more even than my fatheror John take delight and pride in their beauty, could recollect who gaveus this most splendid plant, or who first instructed us as to the styleand title by which it was known. Certes never was blossom fitliernamed. Regular as the sun's face in an almanack, it had a tint ofgolden scarlet, of ruddy yellow, which realised Shakspeare's gorgeousexpression of "flame-coloured. " The sky at sunset sometimes puts onsuch a hue, or a fire at Christmas when it burns red as well as bright. The blossom was dazzling to look upon. It seemed as if there were lightin the leaves, like that coloured-lamp of a flower, the Oriental Poppy. Phoebus was not too glorious a name for that dahlia. The Golden-hairedApollo might be proud of such an emblem. It was worthy of the god ofday; a very Phoenix of floral beauty. 

Every dahlia fancier who came into our garden or who had an opportunityof seeing a bloom elsewhere; and, sooth to say, we were ratherostentatious in our display; John put it into stands, and jars, and baskets, and dishes; Dick stuck it into Dash's collar, his ownbutton-hole, and Pearl's bridle; my father presented it to such ladyvisiters as he delighted to honour; and I, who have the habit ofdangling a flower, generally a sweet one, caught myself more than oncerejecting the spicy clove and the starry jessamine, the blossomed myrtleand the tuberose, my old fragrant favourites, for this scentless (buttriumphant) beauty; everybody who beheld the Phoebus begged for a plantor a cutting; and we, generous in our ostentation, willing to redeemthe vice by the virtue, promised as many plants and cuttings as we couldreasonably imagine the root might be made to produce*--perhaps rathermore; and half the dahlia growers round rejoiced over the glories of thegorgeous flower, and speculated, as the wont is now, upon seedling afterseedling to the twentieth generation. 

 * It is wonderful how many plants may, by dint of forcing, and cutting and forcing again, be extracted from one root. But the experiment is not always safe. Nature sometimes avenges herself for the encroachments of art, by weakening the progeny. The Napoleon Dahlia, for instance, the finest of last year's seedlings, being over-propagated, this season has hardly produced one perfect bloom, even in the hands of the most skilful cultivators. 

Alas for the vanity of human expectations! February came, thetwenty-second of February, the very St. Valentine of dahlias, whenthe roots which have been buried in the ground during the winter aredisinterred, and placed in a hotbed to put forth their first shootsprevious to the grand operations of potting and dividing them. Of coursethe first object of search in the choicest corner of the nicely labelledhoard, was the Phoebus: but no Phoebus was forthcoming; root and labelhad vanished bodily! There was, to be sure, a dahlia without a label, which we would gladly have transformed into the missing treasure; but aswe speedily discovered a label without a dahlia, it was but too obviousthat they belonged to each other. Until last year we might have hadplenty of the consolation which results from such divorces of thename from the thing; for our labels, sometimes written upon parchment, sometimes upon leather, sometimes upon wood, as each material happenedto be recommended by gardening authorities, and fastened on withpackthread, or whip-cord, or silk twist, had generally parted companyfrom the roots, and frequently become utterly illegible, producing astate of confusion which most undoubtedly we never expected to regret:but this year we had followed the one perfect system of labels ofunglazed china, highly varnished after writing on them, and fastened onby wire; and it had answered so completely, that one, and one only, hadbroken from its moorings. No hope could be gathered from that quarter. The Phoebus was gone. So much was clear; and our loss being fullyascertained, we all began, as the custom is, to divert our grief andexercise our ingenuity by different guesses as to the fate of thevanished treasure. 

My father, although certain that he had written the label, and wired theroot, had his misgivings about the place in which it had been deposited, and half suspected that it had slipt in amongst a basket which we hadsent as a present to Ireland; I myself, judging from a similar accidentwhich had once happened to a choice hyacinth bulb, partly thought thatone or other of us might have put it for care and safety in some suchvery snug corner, that it would be six months or more before it turnedup; John, impressed with a high notion of the money-value of theproperty and estimating it something as a keeper of the regalia mightestimate the most precious of the crown jewels, boldly affirmed that itwas stolen; and Dick, who had just had a démêlé with the cook, uponthe score of her refusal to dress a beef-steak for a sick greyhound, asserted, between jest and earnest, that that hard-hearted officialhad either ignorantly or maliciously boiled the root for a Jerusalemartichoke, and that we, who stood lamenting over our regretted Phoebus, had actually eaten it, dished up with white sauce. John turned pale atthe thought. The beautiful story of the Falcon, in Boccaccio, which theyoung knight killed to regale his mistress, or the still more tragicalhistory of Couci, who minced his rival's heart, and served it up to hiswife, could not have affected him more deeply. We grieved over our lostdahlia, as if it had been a thing of life. 

Grieving, however, would not repair our loss; and we determined, as theonly chance of becoming again possessed of this beautiful flower, to visit, as soon as the dahlia season began, all the celebratedcollections in the neighbourhood, especially all those from which therewas any chance of our having procured the root which had so mysteriouslyvanished. 

Early in September, I set forth on my voyage of discovery--my voyages, I ought to say; for every day I and my pony-phaeton made our way towhatever garden within our reach bore a sufficiently high character tobe suspected of harbouring the good Dahlia Phoebus. 

Monday we called at Lady A. 's; Tuesday at General B's; Wednesday at SirJohn C's; Thursday at Mrs. D's; Friday at Lord E's; and Saturday at Mr. F. 's. We might as well have staid at home; not a Phoebus had they, oranything like one. 

We then visited the nurseries, from Brown's, at Slough, a princelyestablishment, worthy of its regal neighbourhood, to the pretty ruralgardens at South Warnborough, not forgetting our own most intelligentand obliging nurseryman, Mr. Sutton of Reading--(Belford Regis, Imean)--whose collection of flowers of all sorts is amongst the mostchoice and select that I have ever known. Hundreds of magnificentblossoms did we see in our progress, but not the blossom we wanted. 

There was no lack, heaven knows, of dahlias of the desired colour. Besides a score of "Orange Perfections, " bearing the names of theirrespective growers, we were introduced to four Princes of Orange, threeKings of Holland, two Williams the Third, and one Lord Roden. *

 * The nomenclature of dahlias is a curious sign of the times. It rivals in oddity that of the Racing Calendar. Next to the peerage, Shakspeare and Homer seem to be the chief sources whence they have derived their appellations. Thus we have Hectors and Dioedes of all colours, a very black Othello, and a very fair Desdemona. One beautiful blossom, which seems like a white ground thickly rouged with carmine, is called "the Honourable Mrs. Harris;" and it is droll to observe how punctiliously the working gardeners retain the dignified prefix in speaking of the flower. I heard the other day of a _serious_ dahlia grower who had called his seedlings after his favourite preachers, so that we shall have the Reverend Edward So-and-so, and the Reverend John Such-an-one, fraternising with the profane Ariels and Imogenes, the Giaours and Me-doras of the old catalogue. So much the better. Floriculture is amongst the most innocent and humanising of all pleasures, and everything which tends to diffuse such pursuits amongst those who have too few amusements, is a point gained for happiness and for virtue. 

We were even shown a bloom called the Phoebus, about as like to ourPhoebus "as I to Hercules. " But the true Phoebus, "the real SimonPure, " was as far to seek as ever. 

Learnedly did I descant with the learned in dahlias over the merits ofmy lost beauty. "It was a cupped flower, Mr. Sutton, " quoth I, to myagreeable and sympathising listener; (gardeners _are_ a most cultivatedand gentlemanly race;) "a cupped dahlia, of the genuine metropolitanshape; large as the Criterion, regular as the Springfield Rival, perfectas Dodd's Mary, with a long bloom stalk like those good old flowers, the Countess of Liverpool and the Widnall's Perfection. And such a freeblower, and so true! I am quite sure that there is not so good a dahliathis year. I prefer it to 'Corinne, ' over and over. " And Mr. Suttonassented and condoled, and I was as near to being comforted as anybodycould be, who had lost such a flower as the Phoebus. 

After so many vain researches, most persons would have abandonedthe pursuit in despair. But despair is not in my nature. I have acomfortable share of the quality which the possessor is wont to callperseverance--whilst the uncivil world is apt to designate it by thename of obstinacy--and do not easily give in. Then the chase, howeverfruitless, led, like other chases, into beautiful scenery, and formed anexcuse for my visiting or revisiting many of the prettiest places in thecounty. 

Two of the most remarkable spots in the neighbourhood are, as ithappens, famous for their collections of dahlias--Strathfield-saye, theseat of the Duke of Wellington, and the ruins of Reading Abbey. 

Nothing can well be prettier than the drive to Strathfield-saye, passing, as we do, through a great part of Heckfield Heath, * a tractof wild woodland, a forest, or rather a chase, full of fine sylvanbeauty--thickets of fern and holly, and hawthorn and birch, surmountedby oaks and beeches, and interspersed with lawny glades and deeppools, letting light into the picture. Nothing can be prettier than theapproach to the duke's lodge. And the entrance to the demesne, through adeep dell dark with magnificent firs, from which we emerge into a finelywooded park of the richest verdure, is also striking and impressive. But the distinctive feature of the place (for the mansion, merely acomfortable and convenient nobleman's house, hardly responds to the fameof its owner) is the grand avenue of noble elms, three quarters of amile long, which leads to the front door. 

 * It may be interesting to the lovers of literature to hear that my accomplished friend Mrs. Trollope was "raised, " as her friends the Americans would say, upon this spot. Her father, the Rev. William Milton, himself a very clever man, and an able mechanician and engineer, held the living of Heckfield for many years. 

It is difficult to imagine anything which more completely realises thepoetical fancy, that the pillars and arches of a Gothic cathedral wereborrowed from the interlacing of the branches of trees planted at statedintervals, than this avenue, in which Nature has so completely succeededin outrivalling her handmaiden Art, that not a single trunk, hardly evena bough or a twig, appears to mar the grand regularity of the design asa piece of perspective. No cathedral aisle was ever more perfect; andthe effect, under every variety of aspect, the magical light and shadowof the cold white moonshine, the cool green light of a cloudy day, andthe glancing sunbeams which pierce through the leafy umbrage inthe bright summer noon, are such as no words can convey. Separatelyconsidered, each tree (and the north of Hampshire is celebrated for thesize and shape of its elms) is a model of stately growth, and they arenow just at perfection, probably about a hundred and thirty years old. There is scarcely perhaps in the kingdom such another avenue. 

On one side of this noble approach is the garden, where, under the careof the skilful and excellent gardener, Mr. Cooper, so many magnificentdahlias are raised, but where, alas! the Phoebus was not; and betweenthat and the mansion is the sunny, shady paddock, with its rich pastureand its roomy stable, where, for so many years, Copenhagen, thecharger who carried the Duke at Waterloo, formed so great an object ofattraction to the visiters of Strathfield-saye. * Then came the houseitself and then I returned home. Well! this was one beautiful andfruitless drive. The ruins of Reading Abbey formed another as fruitless, and still more beautiful. 

 * Copenhagen--(I had the honour of naming one of Mr. Cooper's dahlias after him--a sort of _bay_ dahlia, if I may be permitted the expression)--Copenhagen was a most interesting horse. He died last year at the age of twenty- seven. He was therefore in his prime on the day of Waterloo, when the duke (then and still a man of iron) rode him for seventeen hours and a half, without dismounting. When his Grace got off, he patted him, and the horse kicked, to the great delight of his brave rider, as it proved that he was not beaten by that tremendous day's work. After his return, this paddock was assigned to him, in which he passed the rest of his life in the most perfect comfort that can be imagined; fed twice a-day, (latterly upon oats broken for him, ) with a comfortable stable to retire to, and a rich pasture in which to range. The late amiable duchess used regularly to feed him with bread, and this kindness had given him the habit, (especially after her death, ) of approaching every lady with the most confiding familiarity. He had been a fine animal, of middle size and a chestnut colour, but latterly he exhibited an interesting specimen of natural decay, in a state as nearly that of nature as can well be found in a civilised country. He had lost an eye from age, and had become lean and feeble, and, in the manner in which he approached even a casual visiter, there was something of the demand of sympathy, the appeal to human kindness, which one has so often observed from a very old dog towards his master. Poor Copenhagen, who, when alive, furnished so many reliques from his mane and tail to enthusiastic young ladies, who had his hair set in brooches and rings, was, after being interred with military honours, dug up by some miscreant, (never, I believe, discovered, ) and one of his hoofs cut off, it is to be presumed, for a memorial, although one that would hardly go in the compass of a ring. A very fine portrait of Copenhagen has been executed by my young friend Edmund H a veil, a youth of seventeen, whose genius as an animal painter, will certainly place him second only to Landseer. 

Whether in the "palmy state" of the faith of Rome, the pillared aislesof the Abbey church might have vied in grandeur with the avenue atStrathfield-saye, I can hardly say; but certainly, as they stand, thevenerable arched gateway, the rock-like masses of wall, the crumblingcloisters, and the exquisite finish of the surbases of the columns andother fragments, fresh as if chiselled yesterday, which are re-appearingin the excavations now making, there is an interest which leavesthe grandeur of life, palaces and their pageantry, parks and theiradornments, all grandeur except the indestructible grandeur of nature, at an immeasurable distance. The place was a history. Centuries passedbefore us as we thought of the magnificent monastery, the third in sizeand splendour in England, with its area of thirty acres between thewalls--and gazed upon it now!

And yet, even now, how beautiful! Trees of every growth mingling withthose grey ruins, creepers wreathing their fantastic garlands aroundthe mouldering arches, gorgeous flowers flourishing in the midst of thatdecay! I almost forgot my search for the dear Phoebus, as I rambled withmy friend Mr. Malone, the gardener, a man who would in any station beremarkable for acuteness and acquirement, amongst the august remains ofthe venerable abbey, with the history of which he was as conversantas with his own immediate profession. There was no speaking of smallerobjects in the presence of the mighty past!

Gradually chilled by so much unsuccess, the ardour of my pursuitbegan to abate. I began to admit the merits of other dahlias of diverscolours, and actually caught myself committing the inconstancy ofconsidering which of the four Princes of Orange I should bespeak fornext year. Time, in short, was beginning to play his part as the greatcomforter of human afflictions, and the poor Phoebus seemed as likely tobe forgotten as a last year's bonnet, or a last week's newspaper--when, happening to walk with my father to look at a field of his, a pretty bitof upland pasture about a mile off, I was struck, in one corner wherethe manure for dressing had been deposited, and a heap of earth and dungstill remained, to be spread, I suppose, next spring, with sometall plant surmounted with bright flowers. Could it be?--was itpossible?--did my eyes play me false?--No; there it was, upon adunghill--the object of all my researches and lamentations, theidentical Phoebus! the lost dahlia!